ORC International Survey Finds More Than Half Of Individual Investors Interested In Single Family Rental Property Investments

Acting as Landlord Largest Obstacle to Real Estate Investment

IRVINE, Calif., July 15, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — A new, ORC International survey shows that a majority of individual investors would be interested in investing in single-family rental (SFRs) properties, if they could do it without becoming hands-on landlords. The online survey, conducted late spring, was sponsored by HomeUnion, a national real estate investment management firm.

The survey said that 59 percent of investors would be encouraged to purchase SFR investment properties. Of this group they believed these investments could generate higher cash flows than traditional fixed income products and could offer tax benefits. Slightly more than 20 percent of investors were attracted to the potential of asset appreciation. Other benefits that investors associated with this new asset class were portfolio diversification and asset allocation (16 percent) and leverage through the use of financing (12 percent).

“Increasingly individual investors are following the lead of institutional investors and are looking to real estate investing as an alternative to traditional, low-yielding bond and mutual fund options,” said Don Ganguly, chief executive officer of HomeUnion. “These investors are attracted to the potential for income and for asset allocation, not the prospect of a quick gain by house-flipping.”

Investors not Landlords

Probably the biggest barrier to entry, according to the survey, was concern over the responsibility of being hands-on landlords. More than half of investors said they would definitely be interested in investing in a rental property if they didn’t have to be a hands-on landlord and had the assistance of a reputable company to handle the selection, purchase, rehabilitation and management of rental homes.

“The prospect of calls at two in the morning about backed up toilets, or the hassle of finding and vetting tenants, has kept millions of potential individual investors out of residential real estate, even as billions of dollars of institutional investments have poured into this new and growing asset class,” Ganguly noted. “We believe, and the ORC International survey confirms, that individuals are interested in the benefits of investment in SFR if, like their institutional counterparts, they can outsource the logistics of property management to reputable turnkey vendors.”

Taking distance out of the equation

According to the ORC International survey, a third of investors said they would buy a property in another market to get a better return on their investment. That number rises to more than 50 percent if they could rely on the services of a firm with strong knowledge of that local market; if the property was managed by a trusted national firm; or if they had access to state-of-the-art information about the local real estate market place.

“In many high-cost areas investing in local real estate does not generate the returns that are available in other parts of the country,” said Ganguly. “We mitigate the risks of remote investing by using data, analytics and boots on the ground to assess the market, select the right properties and then find the best property managers. This is what institutional investors have been doing for the past two years. Now this level of professional assistance is available to anyone looking to diversify from the stock market and looking to improve the rate of return on an individual retirement account.”

Ganguly noted that last year, more than one out of five homes purchased in the United States was an investment property. Earlier this year, cash sales—a relatively strong proxy for investor activity­­—accounted for more than 40% of all sales, according to CoreLogic. For the most part, however, very few of these investments were done using IRAs. Currently, individual investors have more than $3.9 trillion in these accounts, so even a small reallocation of IRA assets away from the stock market or traditional fixed income investments could potentially have a major impact on the housing market and the returns investors see on their IRAs.

Methodology

This report presents the findings of a survey conducted among a sample of 1,009 adults comprising 502 men and 507 women 18 years of age and older. The online omnibus study is conducted twice a week among a demographically representative U.S. sample of 1,000 adults 18 years of age and older. This survey was conducted on April 14-16, 2014.

Completed interviews are weighted by five variables: age, sex, geographic region, race and education to ensure reliable and accurate representation of the total U.S. population, 18 years of age and older. The raw data are weighted by a custom designed program which automatically develops a weighting factor for each respondent. Each respondent is assigned a single weight derived from the relationship between the actual proportion of the population based on US Census data with its specific combination of age, sex, geographic characteristics, race and education and the proportion in the sample. Tabular results show both weighted and unweighted bases.

Respondents for this survey were selected from among those who have volunteered to participate in online surveys and polls. The data have been weighted to reflect the demographic composition of the 18+ population. Because the sample is based on those who initially self-selected for participation, no estimates of sampling error can be calculated. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to multiple sources of error, including, but not limited to sampling error, coverage error, error associated with nonresponse, error associated with question wording and response options, and post-survey weighting and adjustments.

About HomeUnion

HomeUnion is a real estate investment management firm, specializing in single-family rental (SFR) properties. Based in Irvine, Calif., it provides all the services needed for individuals to invest remotely in SFR properties. HomeUnion’s role spans the lifecycle of the investment transaction: from locating properties; advising on the purchase; finding renters; managing the property; and selling it when the time comes.

About ORC International

ORC International is a leading global market research firm and a collaborative and consultative research partner to hundreds of organizations around the globe. As a founding member of the Code of Standards of the Council of American Survey Research Organizations (CASRO) and a member of the European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research (ESOMAR), it adheres to a rigorous Code of Standards and Ethics for Survey Research. ORC International is ISO 20252 certified. To achieve certification, ORC International passed a comprehensive, on-site audit. The certification establishes globally recognized terms, definitions, and service requirements for project management in research organizations. Processes outlined in ISO 20252 are designed to produce transparent, consistent, well documented and error-free methods of conducting and managing research projects. Adherence and certification to such standards provides a basis of confidence for clients and other constituencies that the work produced is being executed with quality processes and controls in place.

ORC International is pleased to be a partner to CNN on the CNN|ORC International poll. For the last five years, ORC International has conducted national polls, state-level polls, post-debate and speech polls, as well as polls to support CNN documentaries. The polls, regularly seen on CNN as well as other media stations and outlets worldwide, highlights insight on the nation’s perceptions of candidates, topics and issues.